Bundestag veteran touted as Germany’s next president

BERLIN — After the surprise announcement this week that German Parliament President Norbert Lammert won't seek reelection next year, speculation is growing that Angela Merkel’s conservatives could put him in the running for the German presidency.

While Lammert has dodged questions about his ambitions, politicians from across the political spectrum have endorsed his candidacy.

“I am certain that Lammert will have his role [in German politics] in the future,” Christian Lindner, head of the liberal FDP, told the Rheinische Post newspaper following news about his resignation from the Bundestag.

“I would like to see Norbert Lammert as president and I would be happy if he was willing to run for office,” Bodo Ramelow, state premier in Thuringia for the far-left Die Linke, told Passauer Neue Presse on Wednesday.

Though the German presidency is a largely ceremonial role, some previous incumbents have been viewed as a moral authority with an influence that transcends the formal powers of the office.

In June, current President Joachim Gauck announced he wouldn't seek a second term next year. That means the Bundestag and representatives from Germany’s 16 state assemblies will have to settle on a replacement, as Germany’s president isn’t elected by the public. No party has enough votes to install a candidate of its own, meaning the winner will have to draw support from a wider base. The election is scheduled for February 12.

On Monday evening, Lammert told his constituency in North Rhine-Westphalia that he was not running for a Bundestag seat in 2017, ending a 37-year career in the lower house of parliament. Since 2005, he has been the parliament's president.

“A farewell from being an active politician is not an easy thing for me to do,” he wrote in a letter to the party faithful.

After almost 11 years as Bundestag president, representing all members of the German parliament, Lammert has gained a great deal of respect, officials say, with one colleague describing him as “really more a political scholar than a politician.”

In September, he made headlines when he reprimanded Merkel and her conservative group leader Volker Kauder for talking during a speech by an opposition politician, telling the chancellor: "This really isn't necessary."